Sweden: Immigration Tops Voters Concerns Ahead of Election

VIRGINIA HALE20 Apr 2018

Swedes have named immigration as the country’s most pressing concern, a new poll taken ahead of national elections in September has found.

The Demoskop survey conducted for Expressen found that some 20 per cent of Swedes now believe immigration to be the most important election issue — a figure which has jumped five points since March, when healthcare topped the list of voters’ concerns.

Healthcare was the primary concern for 19 per cent of respondents followed by law and order at 12 per cent, and integration at 10 per cent along with schooling and childcare which also attracted 10 per cent of the vote.

On the issues of both immigration and integration, Swedes surveyed had the highest confidence in policies put forward by the populist Sweden Democrats (SD).

As Breitbart London previously reported, the party has pledged to turn the migration board into a “remigration” board in its election platform this year, where it also vowed to tighten controls on asylum seekers and reform generous family reunification laws.

Demoskop CEO Anders Lindholm said it is “doubtless” the anti-mass migration party benefits from rising concern over immigration in Sweden, where “humanitarian” asylum laws have propelled the population share of foreign-born to 20 per cent.

“The party most closely associated with an issue naturally benefits when that topic comes into focus,” he said.

A lot of voters have noticed that the ruling Social Democrats have “changed quite dramatically on the issue” in recent months, he said, describing the ruling party as the one “that has shifted most in terms of immigration and integration [policy]”.

However, in shifting away from a more open borders-style platform, Lindholm said the centre-left party is “at risk of leaking voters to the Left Party and the Greens”.

Up until recently, most of the establishment media resolutely refused to acknowledge any of the problems mass migration has brought to Sweden after decades of liberal policies importing huge numbers of people from the world’s most poor and turbulent nations, last year mocking U.S. President Donald J. Trump for highlighting the issue.

But in the last week — almost three years after Breitbart London started covering the problem — BBC News and Politico have both carried articles describing the rising tide of violence which now plagues the once-peaceful Scandinavian nation, and how grenade attacks and gang crime have turned migrant-dominated suburbs into war zones.